2003 Dassault Undertail

Assaulting the Dussault undertail!

I recently received a beautifully built piece of equipment for my YZF600R to test for this magazine. First and foremost, I have to say this is a gorgeous product. The paint match is exact, and it really finishes the underside off nicely.

That being said, the rest of this operation was a real pain in the ass, to put it bluntly. The package came to me without any instructions whatsoever. While perusing their website I realized that the instructions were available online. I downloaded and printed a set.

That being said, the rest of this operation was a real pain in the ass, to put it bluntly.

When I began to install this tail with the help of two friends, I immediately realized how poor the instructions were. Instead of saying, "Use the drill bit in your dremel to cut an arc 6" up and 12" across. It merely says to use a dremel. No templates were made to be downloaded and held against the area that needed cutting. We were furnished with a picture of a YZF with a yellow tapeline where the cutting was done. That being said, we finally got the section that needed cutting disposed of. Then we realized that no matter what, my bungee hooks needed to be cut off to make this work. I was not happy about this in the least, as I use the bike for trips as well as local riding. This was a VERY poor design, and a MAJOR design flaw.

We began this whole endeavor at approximately 3:30 and finished at 8:30. Yes, Zelda, it took an entire 5 hours to complete the install. We began by removing the plastic tail section, and then we cut the inner fender along the aforementioned yellow lines. Once this was done, we began the arduous task of lining everything up to fit. I managed to save the two forward bungee hook points by drilling two small holes in the undertail for those forward points to peak through. When the realization hit that we would need to cut the rear bungee hooks off, out came the heavy equipment, meaning a reciprocating saw (Sawzall) and the rear hooks were gone. Then we lined up everything and saw that it's NOT an exact fit, as there is slightly more material on the left side showing as on the right. Not a big deal really, as only the most discriminating soul will see this and comment on it, to any owners ire.

Next came the task of wiring it all up. This, you would think at least, would be an easy endeavor.

Yeah, it might be, if they told you what wires were for what. Okay, there were two black wires with a piece of tape wrapped around them and a negative (-) symbol etched on the tape. But why was there another set of black wires coming off the same lights. Taped off separately? There were red wires together and taped off. These were obviously power for the running lights. After much thinking and reasoning, we decided that the black wire set without markings were for the brake lights. (Dussault, would it have been to much trouble to run different color wires for each section of the signal lamps, say white for the running lights, red for the stop lights, and black for the grounds? And then to mark them as such?)

After the wiring was completed, we sat back and looked at the bike. The piece was beautiful. It looks great; the lights seemed to work fine. But this was 9 PM when I was rolling home. This morning I found out that the LED lights are barely visible, as my buddy almost rear-ended me when I was making a right. Luckily I was watching him in my rearview mirror, and all was well as I acted quickly and straightened out my corner. I just ordered a set of flush mount turn signals to hopefully act as auxiliary turn only indicators.

In a nutshell, squirrel-boy: The piece is beautiful. It matches the bike perfectly, and really looks great on there. It's plastic is high quality all around. 5 Stars for design.

But as far as being more then eye candy goes, I give it 1 ½ stars. The extremely poorly worded out there who mistakenly believe you're Superman, and will never get hurt while on two wheels. For you guys, this piece is a blessing, as it really finished off the underside of the bike beautifully. For those of us who do more then merely ride from local bike hangout to local bike hangout, with wheelies and stoppies in between, I'd pass.

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